NEW DELHI, Dec 7: Police killed two militants belonging to the Hizbul Mujahedin group in New Delhi Sunday after a tip-off about their whereabouts from two members of the same group arrested earlier in the day.

“The two militants whom we arrested earlier told us that they were to meet two more militants near Lotus temple (in South Delhi),” joint commissioner of police Neeraj Kumar said.

He said two militants died in the subsequent encounter with police.

The men had shot at the police when they neared the temple.

Earlier on Sunday police arrested two militants after receiving information that they were hiding in a house in South Delhi’s Khanpur area.

Police recovered two AK-47 rifles, four kilogrammes of RDX explosives, 120 rounds of bullets, six hand-grenades and 1.5 million rupees (30,000 dollars) in cash from the house.

“We are interrogating them on what they were planning,” said Kumar, adding that both the militants were residents of Indian Kashmir’s border region of Rajouri. Hizbul Mujahedin the largest of about a dozen rebel groups that have been fighting Indian rule in Kashmir since 1989.

More than 39,500 people have died in the anti-New Delhi rebellion in Indian-held Kashmir, although separatists put the toll at between 80,000 and 100,000.—AFP